An air conditioner, which is a commonly used cooling and dehumidifying device, uses a refrigerant and is recognized as a main cause of the destruction of the ozone layer and global warming which are caused by a leakage of the refrigerant. In consideration of a problem of the use of such a refrigerant, energy ventilation devices for reducing a ventilation load through sensible heat transfer and latent heat transfer between indoor exhaust air and outdoor intake air have been developed.
However, conventional ventilation devices have a problem in that a recovery rate of latent heat is significantly lower than that of sensible heat such that the conventional ventilation devices cannot respond to an increase in cooling load. A regenerative evaporative cooling technique has been developed in consideration of the problem of the conventional energy ventilation devices.
The regenerative evaporative cooling technique lowers a temperature of air using an evaporative cooling effect of water and has advantages capable of resolving a problem of a conventional air conditioner and sufficiently reducing a cooling load since no refrigerant other than water is used.
An evaporative cooler is configured such that a wet channel and a dry channel are continuously repeatedly formed, and air is cooled through heat exchange due to evaporation in the wet channel and is supplied into an interior via the dry channel.
As a prior art related to the described above, FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an evaporative cooler provided in a dehumidifying cooling apparatus disclosed in Korean Registered Patent No. 10-1229676.
A conventional evaporative cooler 150 is configured such that a portion of low-temperature dry air passing through a dry channel 151 is supplied to an interior and the remaining portion of the low-temperature dry air passing through the dry channel 151 passes through a wet channel 152, water is sprayed onto the wet channel 152 from a water injection device 157, the water sprayed onto the wet channel 152 is evaporated to absorb latent heat, and the evaporative latent heat undergoes a heat exchange with the dry channel 151 to cool air passing through the dry channel 151.
Further, the conventional evaporative cooler 150 is configured such that the water which is not evaporated at the wet channel 152 drops onto a drain plate 310, is collected at the drain plate 310, and then is circulated and supplied to the water injection device 157.
When such an evaporative cooling operation continues over a certain period of time, a temperature of the evaporative water gradually rises to reach an appropriate temperature state for bacterial growth, and a configuration of the conventional evaporative cooler 150 has a structure in which an outlet of the dry channel 151, an inlet of the wet channel 152, an indoor air supply side, and the drain plate 310 communicate with each other, and thus the evaporative water stored in the drain plate 310 and air evaporated at the wet channel 152 may flow into the interior through an air supply side such that there is a problem in that grown bacteria may contaminate indoor air.